Historical Novel Society conference 2012, the Nell-Rochester scene from The Darling Strumpet with Diana Gabaldon reading the narration.

Historical Novel Society conference 2011, the Nell-Rochester scene from The Darling Strumpet with Diana Gabaldon reading the narration.

-:- Biography -:-

Gillian Bagwell grew up in Berkeley, California, and began her professional life as an actress, studying at the University of California Berkeley and the Drama Studio London at Berkeley before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film and television. She moved into directing and producing theatre, founding The Pasadena Shakespeare Company, where she served as artistic director for nine years, producing thirty-seven critically acclaimed productions.

She united her life-long love of books, British history, and theatre in writing her first novel, The Darling Strumpet, based on the life of Nell Gwynn. Her second novel, The September Queen, is the first fictional account of the perilous and romantic odyssey of Jane Lane, an ordinary English girl who risked her life to help the young Charles II escape after the disastrous Battle of Worcester in 1651 by disguising him as her servant. Gillian recently returned to Berkeley and is at work on her third novel, about the formidable four-times widowed Tudor dynast Bess of Hardwick.

Gillian's articles on the months from May 1660 to January 1661, to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the Restoration of Charles II, the reopening of the playhouses that had been closed for eighteen years under Cromwell, and the first appearance of an actress on the English stage: